More than 200,000 people took to the streets in Washington, DC, Saturday April 29th for the People’s Climate March. Tens of thousands more joined via sister marches across the globe, including Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand, Uganda, Kenya, Germany, Greece, United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica and more.

In the U.S., more than 370 marches in nearly all 50 states took place, from the town of Dutch Harbor in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands to the streets of Miami, Denver, Los Angeles, Chicago and other major American cities.

A coalition of communities, faith leaders, labor activists, civil rights champions and climate justice advocates led the march while demanding commonsense protections for the air we breathe, the water we drink and the health of the vulnerable communities who have the most to lose under President Trump’s administration.

The battle over climate change is a sticky one. The fossil fuel industry which own plenty of politicians in both major political parties spends millions of dollars a year denying it’s happening, but my rhododendron is now blooming in early December. Twenty-five years ago, it began blooming in late March and early April. Fifteen years ago, it began blooming in January. I also have roses blooming in snowy December, and that is something that never happened in the forty years I’ve lived in this house.

Quite naturally, the war over climate change is a battle over ever increasing profits and share prices. Major corporations and their shareholders, as well as Wall Street (which controls the Democratic Establishment like puppets), want ever increasing profits because this produces ever increasing share prices and dividends. Getting rid of fossil fuels will force the oil corporations out of business, and cut into the profits and share prices of other manufacturers.

This means the battle over climate change is a battle between ultra rich shareholders and millionaire and billionaire CEO’s on the one hand, and the rest of the world’s people on the other. Naturally, the rich and their corporations fund bogus studies showing global warming in not real in order to influence the voters of the 99 percent to believe climate change is a communist plot to destroy the American way of life, when it is really the rich destroying the US middle class way of life. My roses and rhododendron tell me climate change is real, but then, so is the class warfare the rich are waging on the rest of us.

I should point out that the folks at Exxon now admit fossil fuels are causing global warming. The company denied it for decades, but knew as early as the middle of the 1970s that it was happening.

On Tuesday, Bernie Sanders lost the California primary, as well as a few other states. On Thursday, Sanders gave somewhat weak signals that he is ready to support the Democratic Wall Street candidate. Bernie told reporters after meeting with Wall Street President Barack Obama at the White House that he will ally himself with Hillary Clinton in the fight against Donald Trump.

Regardless, Bernie Sanders has built a grassroots movement that can and will only get bigger. There’s a hurricane of a recession coming down the pike, with gale force winds. It’s going to be worse than the last recession because the economic policies the US government has been following for the last thirty-five years, and the last eight, have redistributed income and wealth from the 99 to the 1 percent, curtailing the demand for goods and services. See The Coming Recession: It’s Going to Be a Big One

Currently, the 1 percent steal 37 percent of all the income produced in the United States, compared to 8 percent in 1980. That means the 99 percent has less money to burn.

The current political and economic situation looks a lot like 1928. Then came the Great Depression storm, and then came President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the New Deal. In 1976, Gerald Ford defeated Ronald Reagan for the Republican presidential nomination. Four years later, after successfully negotiating with the Iranian government to keep the American embassy hostages until after the election, Reagan ushered in the modern tyranny of the 1 percent with Reaganomics when he became president. See Argo Helps Iran’s Dictatorship Harms Democracy–The Christian Science Monitor.

That era is about to end.

This coming recession means the next president is likely going to be a one term president.

Then it’ll be our turn. Bernie is 74 years old, and highly unlikely to run for president again. That means our political revolution against the 1 percent will sprout fruit most likely in the form of progressive majorities in the US house and senate, as well as the next US president. That could be Elizabeth Warren.

So while Bernie lost the Democratic primary election, he planted and cultivated a people’s movement to reclaim our democracy and take it back from the plutocrats of the 1 percent, such as Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden.

Our time is coming. Don’t give up. This Democratic primary fight was just the first round. Plenty of billionaires want you to give up, especially since we are on the verge of winning.

Think about the late Muhammad Ali. He didn’t give up against the most powerful government in the world when he refused induction into the US military because of his religious beliefs. It took some time, but he won! We will too!

A new report released this week by the Institute for Policy Studies looks at the fortunes of the Forbes 400, and compares their wealth to the much more meager assets of the rest of America.

Among their most significant findings:

* America’s 20 wealthiest people — a group including Warren Buffett, Charles and David Koch, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Bloomberg and Sheldon Adelson — now own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population combined, a total of 152 million people in 57 million households.

* The Forbes 400 now own about as much wealth as the nation’s entire African-American population — plus more than a third of the Latino population — combined.

* With a combined worth of $2.34 trillion, the Forbes 400 own more wealth than the bottom 61 percent of the country combined, a staggering 194 million people.

* The median American family has a net worth of $81,000. The Forbes 400 own more wealth than 36 million of these typical American families.

* Furthermore, the report authors note that they “believe that these statistics actually underestimate our current national levels of wealth concentration.” They say the “growing use of offshore tax havens and legal trusts has made the concealing of assets much more widespread than ever before.”

The folks at the Institute for Policy Studies appeared to be clueless as to how this historically massive unequal distribution of income came about. Those who control the state and federal government engineered this inequality, through such income redistribution programs as;

1. International income redistribution scams falsely marketed as free trade treaties. The latest scam is the Trans Pacific Partnership, a so-called trade treaty involving 12 nations of the Pacific Rim. Such wealthy class warriors as George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Mitch McConnell, Orrin Hatch, and Ron Wyden support this, the largest, income redistribution scam in US history. It will also diminish the voting rights of the 99 percent on local and state levels. These agreements pave the legal route for US corporations to ship US jobs overseas. It also paves the way for US corporations to create jobs over there, rather than over here. The difference between the old higher US pay and the new lower overseas pay goes straight into the pockets of the super rich via higher corporate profits, rising dividends and surging share prices. The job losers may get some unemployment insurance, if they are lucky. These agreements are the biggest income redistribution scams, but there are other significant scams of this nature. According to the Federal Reserve Bank, Wyden voted to export 28 million US jobs overseas from 1990 to 2010, and millions more since.

2. Privatization scams, which enrich the wealthy.

3. Tax breaks for the rich, which allow them to purchase politicians, who then do their bidding in the halls of congress, in the white house, and in state houses across the nation. That bidding usually consists of legislation that redistributes income and wealth from the 99 to the 1 percent, such as Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden’s Trans Pacific Partnership.

In spite of their ignorance of how we got here, the folks of the Institute for Policy Studies did come up with some good suggestions to curtail wealth accumulation by a few people, which has come about at the expense of the many.

“First, we must close wealth escape routes. Wealthy individuals are moving quickly to shift wealth into offshore tax havens and bury it in private trusts, avoiding accountability and taxation every step of the way. This hidden wealth now totals in the trillions. Our first step must be to close these escape routes and tax dodges.

Second, we need to implement policies to reduce concentrated wealth. Without action to directly reduce private concentrations of wealth, inequality will continue to grow. By seriously taxing our wealthiest households, we could raise significant revenues and invest these funds to expand wealth-building opportunities across the economy.”

The next installment on this story, Why Wealth and Income Inequality Matters: Especially Since the Rich Are Stealing From the Rest of Us, will be within two days.

A decade in the making, the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) reached a climax two weeks ago when corporations paid enough money to politicians in the US Senate and the House of Representatives to give President Obama Fast Track Authority, which makes it easier to ramrod the TPP through congress against the wishes of the US public. The TPP is the largest income and political power redistribution scam in US history, but it’s being falsely being marketed as a free trade agreement. Congress must still pass the TPP, and that is not necessarily a done deal. However, big money talks louder, and is more important to politicians, than voters, as noted during the debate over fast track authority. Click on the link below for a reasonably good analysis by the Guardian UK. 54 percent of US voters were against giving Fast Track Authority to the president. This is proof enough democracy does not exist on the federal level in the USA.

President Obama has vetoed Congress’s bill that tried to force approval of the Keystone XL pipeline! But the president still has to make his final decision on whether KXL is in our national interest. Let’s face it. It isn’t.

Estimates are that building the pipeline will bring a few hundred to a few thousand permanent jobs to the United States, but the potential environmental impact is massive. On the other hand, the battle over the pipeline is a battle between heavyweight billionaires.

In one corner are the Koch Brothers. Warren Buffett is in the other corner. The Koch Brothers have a sizable investment in the pipeline and the tar sands. Buffett owns the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, which is the largest transporter of crude oil in the United States.

If Obama approves of the pipeline, Buffett loses and the Koch’s win. If Obama disapproves of the pipeline, the Koch Brothers lose and Buffett wins.

The Koch Brothers are big investors in the Republican Party. Buffett is a big investor in the Democratic Party. Obama will make his decision based on the priorities of the Democratic Party, just like a Republican president would make this decision based on the priorities of the Republican Party.

Organized money is what controls politics in the United States. Money can be organized in any number of ways. A corporation is made up of money organized from investors. So too are hedge funds. In FDR’s time, organized mob meant organized crime. So what FDR said below should read,

“Government by the rich is just as dangerous as government by organized crime. Never before in all of our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today, They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.”

That’s the way it will be for Elizabeth Warren should she run for president.

In reality, in our government, organized money and organized crime are the same thing. That’s why so many Wall Street CEO’s can get away any crimes they desire, including fraud and money laundering for drug cartels. So, in reality, today, we have a government that is managed by politicians on the payroll of organized crime.

Perhaps this is why US middle class Senator Elizabeth Warren has refused to run for US president in 2016. She would be taking on the modern version of organized crime. Remember the golden rule; he who has the gold makes the rules. Guess who has the gold in the political markets? Just take a look below, and you’ll discover the answer.

The Rigged Game: Corporate America and A People Betrayed

The Rigged Game: Corporate America and a People Betrayed

Wall Street is up to no good, and has been since 1980, when it took over the Republican Party, and then the Democratic Party in 1994. Income has been massively redistributed from the 99 to the 1 percent via legislative scam after scam, from tax cuts for the rich to international income redistribution schemes falsely labeled as trade agreements. In The Rigged Game, John Hively exposes how this has all come about starting with a revolutionary, but simple reality, all recessions begin in the financial markets.